Showing posts with label Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Institute. Show all posts

Monday, February 27, 2017

On Military and Spending, It’s Trump Versus Trump

Written by Ron Paul - Monday February 27, 2017

It can be a challenge to follow the pronouncements of President Trump, as he often seems to change his position on any number of items from week to week, or from day to day, or even from minute to minute. Consider his speech last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). It was reported as “fiery” and “blistering,” but it was also full of contradictions.

In the speech, President Trump correctly pointed out that the last 15 years of US military action in the Middle East has been an almost incomprehensible waste of money – six trillion dollars, he said – and that after all that US war and meddling the region was actually in worse shape than before we started.

It would have been better for US Presidents to have spent the last 15 years at the beach than to have pursued its Middle East war policy, he added, stating that the US infrastructure could have been rebuilt several times over with the money wasted on such militarism.

All good points from the President.

But then minutes later in the same speech he seemed to forget what he just said about wasting money on militarism. He promised he would be “upgrading all of our military, all of our military, offensive, defensive, everything,” in what would be “one of the greatest military buildups in American history.”

This “greatest” military buildup is in addition to the trillions he plans on spending to make sure the US nuclear arsenal is at the "top of the pack" in the world, as he told the press last Thursday. And that is in addition to the trillion dollar nuclear “modernization” program that is carrying over from the Obama Administration.

Of course when it comes to nuclear weapons, the United States already is at the “top of the pack,” having nearly 7,000 nuclear warheads. How many times do we need to be able to blow up the world?

At CPAC, President Trump is worried about needlessly spending money on military misadventures, but then in the same speech he promised even more military misadventures in the Middle East.

Where is the money going to come from for all this? Is the President going to raise taxes to pay for it? Is he going to make massive cuts in domestic spending?

In the same CPAC speech, President Trump reiterated his vow to “massively lower taxes on the middle class, reduce taxes on American business, and make our tax code more simple and much more fair for everyone.” And that’s all good. So it’s not coming from there.

Will he cut domestic spending? The President has indicated that he also wants a massive infrastructure modernization program launched in the near future. The plan will likely cost far in excess of the trillion dollars the President has suggested.

That leaves only one solution: printing money out of thin air. It has been the favorite trick of his predecessors. While he correctly condemns the $20 trillion national debt passed down from previous Administrations, his policies promise to add to that number in a massive way. Printing money out of thin air destroys the currency, hastening a US economic collapse and placing a very cruel tax on the working and middle classes as well.

Following the President’s constantly changing policies can make you dizzy. That’s a shame because the solution is very simple: end the US military empire overseas, cut taxes and regulations at home, end the welfare magnet for illegal immigration, and end the drug war. And then get out of the way.


Copyright © 2017 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. ronpaulinstitute.org
Please donate to the Ron Paul Institute

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Five Minutes Five Issues: Poland Troops, Marijuana Crackdown, Jail Time, Mohammed’s Letter, Symposium Speakers

By Adam Dick - February 26, 2017 at 03:20PM

undefinedA new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is out. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Listen to the new episode here:



Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:

The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.

Starting in five four three two one.


Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.

Let’s start.


Issue one.

The build-up of United States troops near Russia appears to be continuing.

In previous episodes of Five Minutes Five Issues I have talked about US troops arriving in the first weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency in Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania. DW reported on Sunday that one thousand more US troops will be on their way in March to a Polish town 85 miles from the Kaliningrad region of Russia, located between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.


Issue two.

If you are hoping marijuana will be largely excluded from the “ruthless” drug war President Trump has promised, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s Thursday press briefing should provide you with three types of news: good, bad, and confusing.

Good news first: Spicer appeared to say that the Trump administration, looking to an appropriations provision regarding respecting state medical marijuana laws, will not prosecute people complying with state medical marijuana laws.

Next the bad news: Spicer said he expects “greater enforcement” of US laws regarding recreational marijuana is on the way.

Now the confusing news: Asked to clarify what he means by “greater enforcement,” Spicer said:
No, no. I know. I know what I -- I think -- then that’s what I said. But I think the Department of Justice is the lead on that. It is something that you should follow up with them, but I believe that they are going to continue to enforce the laws on the books with respect to recreational marijuana versus –
And that’s it. In short, Spicer’s guidance regarding recreational marijuana turns out to be very murky.

Trump, on the campaign trail in October of 2015, provided more clear guidance. Trump said:
In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state.

Issue three.

Imagine spending a year in jail because you are unable to pay bail. That is the situation described by the Editorial Board of the San Antonio Express News in an editorial last month criticizing the bail situation in some parts of Texas. The editorial board writes that “about 20 percent of felony cases take more than a year to go to court and 56 percent of misdemeanor cases are pending more than six months.” The editorial notes that the threat of long pretrial detention leads many people to “plead guilty just to reduce their jail stays.”

Texas provides this one example among many of the pretrial detention problems in America.


Issue four.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in America who is imprisoned at Guantanamo, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama that was delivered just before Obama left the presidency. The attacks, Mohammed wrote “were a natural reaction to your destructive policies towards the Islamic world; your unlimited support to Israel, the Jewish Zionist State; and your continued support and protection for dictatorial rulers in the Islamic world aimed at protecting your own interests.”

Absent from Mohammed’s letter is any mention of hating Americans because of their freedom.


Issue five.

Two more speakers have joined the lineup for the upcoming symposium on the topic of “War and Peace in the Age of Trump.” Ron Paul Institute Academic and Advisory Board Members Eric Margolis and David Stockman will join previously announced speakers Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and Daniel McAdams.

The event, which RPI is joining the Ludwig von Mises Institute in hosting, will take place on April 8 in Lake Jackson, Texas. To find out more about the event and purchase tickets, open the Mises Institute website at mises.org — that’s M-I-S-E-S dot org — and click on the “events” tab at the top of the page.

-----

That’s a wrap.

Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.


Five four three two one.

from Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity

via IFTTT

Merchandise

Ron Paul America Cloud

Site Credits

Ron Paul America

is voluntarily affiliated with

Liberty Operations Group

______________________________

Site created, maintained and hosted by

Liberty Web Services

Tags

Constitution Individual Liberty Liberty Report Ron Paul Ron Paul Institute ronpaulinstitute.org #TurnOnTheTruth 2008 2012 4th amendment 911 ACTION Afghanistan war Agency Aggression Principle al-Qaeda Alan Colmes Alert America America's Fault Americans antigun AR 15 assault weapon Audit Authoritarian bailouts Believe Big Brother big government bill of rights Blame blowback bubbles Bush Campaign for Liberty Career Politician Eric Cantor Central Bank Charity China churches collapse Collectivism Commission committee Compassion Congress Conservative constitution Constitution Crash dangerous person Democrat Democrats Donald Trump Donald Trump. Planned Parenthood drones economic Economy Edward Snowden End the Fed European Union Federal Reserve Floyd Bayne floyd bayne for congress force foreign interventionism free market free markets GOP Nominee GOP Presidential Debates Government Great Depression gun control House of Representatives housing bubble HR 1745 I like Ron Paul except on foreign policy If ye love wealth better than liberty IFTTT Individual Individualism Institute Irag Iran Iraq war ISIL ISIS Judge Andrew Napalitano libertarian Liberty Liberty Letters Liberty Report Lost mass Media meltdown metadata Micheal Moore Middle East Mitt Romney nap National Neocons New Ron Paul Ad New York Times Newsletters Newt Gingrich No Non non-interventionism NSA NSA Snooping Obama Overreach overthrow Patriot Act peace Peace and Prosperity politicians Pope Francis President Presidential Presidential Race programs prosperity Race Racist Racist Newsletters Rand Paul Read the Bills Act recessions redistribution of wealth refugee crisis Repeal Obamacare Report Republican Republican Nomination Republican Nominee Republicans Revolution Rick Santorum Rick Santorum Exposed Ron Ron Paul Ron Paul Institute Ron Paul Institute Featured Articles Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity Ron Paul Institute Peace and Prosperity Articles Ron Paul Next Chapter Media Channel Ron Paul Racist Newsletters ron paul's foreign policy Ronald Reagan ronpaulchannel.com ronpaulinstitute.org Rosa DeLauro russia Samuel Adams Saudi Arabia Second Amendment Security Senate Senator September 11th attacks Show Soviet Spying stimulate Stock Market surveillance Syria tech bubble terrorist The the Fed the poor US US foreign policy Us troops USA Freedom Act Virginia Virginia Republican Primary voluntarism. Liberty Voluntary Warner Warning warrantless wiretaps YouTube